Saturday, December 7, 2013

My Blogger

I have been taking ECI 296 this semester at NC State University. My blog posts have been weekly assignments that I blogged about. This is the final week and my last assignment is what was my favorite technology tool I used though out the class and ironically it is blogging. I have never had a blog before and I enjoy writing to an unknown audience, who knows who will ever read all this or if anyone other than my teacher ever will- but that gives me a reason to write and explain with definitions and resources, is for that unknown audience.A visual display as to Why Blogging Matters and more on why Blogging Matters in real world aspects as well as in the classroom.

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As a future teacher I plan to use my blog as a digital newsletter type- thing. I will write a new post about what we did in class that week. Things like, we learned about the water cycle this week in class, in hopes that their parents could expand their knowledge beyond my classroom. I would use my blog for updates that are school wide so my student's parents and guardians will stay up to date. Updates about school pictures, lunch money, parent's night and school plays.For my advanced student I would like to have a student blog option. I really think that having an unknown audience will help give students a voice knowing that someday someone might read what they have to say about the topics assigned. This would be in a school and classroom that has technology accessible for the students. I like that using blogger for my blog is easy to use and great looking. It is not too time consuming so a busy, full time teacher still will have time to write a post each week. I like that people can comment on the post and that can aid in communication between parents and me as the teacher. I like that there are labels that can let the parents better navigate though all my posts. I haven't used it yet but I could put a schedule to my post so they go-live at the same time each week. This way a little consistency would help me and the parents. I like this technology tool for lots of reasons including I thing communication with parents is key especially with at the elementary school level. I see that education is joint effort between teacher and parents. Teachers at school and parents at home. There is this secret contract signed by teachers to take care of their children as well as join the force to educate their children. It sounds silly, but it is true if you talk to more teachers. I take my job or my future job very seriously and I take it with pride. I think that blogging aids to the communication between parent and teacher. Blogging fits my concept of a 21st century classroom in that it can be used in many different ways for the students. I will use it for updates for my parents but once the students have proficient basic English skills, I plan to have the class help me write the summary of what we learned in class that week. This will serve as a quick review of math lessons, English, science and social studies so we can put it into the posts. It will help with the students summarization skills as well as highlighting the important things, not each detail. This can serve as a quick test of there English grammar and typing skills. If you are interested in writing a blog, I recommend blogger but from a more reliable source, here is The 10 Best Blogging Platforms. I strongly recommend anyone to start one, especially other teachers. Enjoy it- I have, thoroughly.